Sears - Vancouver

Sears was not good. They were extremely overwhelmed, understaffed and I ended up not being able to get it done, because they had too many customers booked for the same time. The pricing was fine, was pretty average. They were overwhelmed and were rude, very rude about it. I waited 20 minutes on hold and then finally went down there and they were mad I even showed up.  Terrible, terrible, terrible.

.

They are in the Vancouver Mall. I haven't had to have any repairs or anything. It went very well. We've always shopped Sears and they are pretty good. They teach their people well. It was great. It just went smooth as could be. They brought it in and put it right in place. They made sure it was level. It worked fine and it's still working. It didn't cost us anything so we must have had a contract. They were right on time. I've always been happy with them.

The truck came as scheduled, & the men seemed to really care that I was happy.

Both of the repair people were knowledgeable and liked to educate about things and maybe some misnomers. They were willing to really answer a lot of questions that I had. They've been in the business for about twenty years and their own businesses before they started up with Sears.

Note: Sears refused to post this review on their website. Here's what they said:  "Oops, there's a small issue with your review. Your review wasn't approved. Please try to focus your review on the product and its features. We have passed along your Service comments to our customer service team. Please revise and resubmit so the world can hear your tale."
- I believe that the service that came along with the purchase of the water heater is valid for review so am submitting the review in it's entirety here.
There are a lot of good and then not so good aspects of purchasing this water heater with same day install. Let?s start at the beginning and I will give you every bit of detail that can be remembered about this experience... I emailed a picture and part number of my A.O. Smith 40 gallon water heater to Sears. Their website says that they will call back within 20 minutes. Just over the one hour mark I was about to give up on them and call somebody else and finally they called back. Originally wanted the Kenmore 40 gallon water heater water heater (Model # 33114) to avoid installation problems, but they had none in stock. Had to move up to the 50 gallon unit to stick with Kenmore. Ordered the installation and told them to drop the protection agreement. They said someone would call back to set up the installation. Four hours passed with no call back so I called the installation number they gave me. Sears said they'd call the installers and have them contact me, and that they should arrive between 5-10PM. A while later the installers called and sounding kind of exasperated asked me where my new water heater was located. I told them I had no idea since it had been ordered online, but gave them the phone numbers for Sears. Shortly after hanging up Sears called again and asked if everything was going OK, and I told them the installers had called me and didn't know where to get the water heater. She said she would call them and straighten that out. A few minutes later, the installer called back yet again and said they'd be at my house in 30 minutes... this was at 2PM, way earlier than planned... I raced home from work to meet them.
    It turns out that Sears subcontracts all appliance installations. I won't name the installer we had in Southwest Washington State, the two guys worked hard, quickly, and were nice, but could have done better. They drove up in an unmarked pickup truck in street clothes. They were quick enough at getting the old water heater out and putting the new one in place. The first shortcoming is that they seemed ill prepared for the install, they didn't have any stepladders and were having a hard time reaching up to make connections (gas water heaters have to be installed on a stand). The earthquake straps from the old heater were too small for the new one, and the ducting did not fit the new, taller one. I loaned them a couple of step ladders and told one of them where the nearest hardware store was so he could go and get supplies. While the one guy headed out to get supplies, the other one worked on securing my water expansion tank. On the previous water heater, I had installed the expansion tank hanging straight down off the cold water line with some straps going up to the ceiling to hold the weight. The new heater was much larger so the expansion tank couldn't hang down over it. The installer?s idea was to pivot the tank sideways horizontally at the sharkbite fitting tee and put a wrap around it, then run the strap back at a 45 degree angle and connect it to my bracket on the ceiling. Basically what this did was put the cold water line under extreme sideways torque. (By the next morning the cold water line was dripping, so I had to remove his strap and will have to reinstall the tank properly.) Finally the other guy returned and they installed the ducting. They removed the solid metal ducting that was there before and put in cheap flexible foil. Since the new water heater was taller there was now a dip in the ducting where it passed through the wall. I asked the installer if that was OK to have a dip in it and he said it was no problem, that the heat from the water heater created an exhaust draw. (After they left I looked at the manual and it said that the exhaust should have a rise of a quarter inch per foot with no dips or sags.) Lastly, they installed the earthquake straps, but the water heater was leaning... there was about a one inch gap at the top of the water heater and the wall, but the bottom was flush. I guess they didn't notice that the water heater stand had leveling feet where they could have fixed this.
    In conclusion, the new water heater works well and has had no issues so far, the install however was somewhat disappointing. I will need to go back and re-do almost everything myself if I want it done right. I work in production maintenance by trade but didn't want to mess around with a gas appliance which is why I didn't try the install myself. My recommendation to others is to go ahead and buy the water heater from Sears if you like, but if you need it installed call a local plumber that you trust and have them do it right the first time.

Our appliance repair company told us we needed to purchase a new fridge. The service was fine. The day after we purchased it they lowered the price online, we called them and they refunded us the difference which was nice.

If I were looking for work on a vehicle I would not take to any sears auto center.

I go to Sears because I can charge it there. I didn't compare a lot with others so I don't know but we are careful when we buy appliances. We don't top the line but we don't buy bottom either and I thought they were reasonable. They are very professional and very thorough. They show us everything and all our options especially if we ask or express an interest in not just picking the first thing that we see. There is nothing wrong with Sears, they do a good job.

The person they used was very good. He did everything he said he would do. We would use them again for another bath. We were real pleased with them. They were very knowledgeable about bathrooms and they answered our questions.